Emily Dickinson's poetry

Artemisia

Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was an American lyrical poet, and an obsessively private writer -- only seven of her some 1800 poems were published during her lifetime. Dickinson withdrew from social contact at the age of 23 and devoted herself in secret into writing.

Dickinson was born in Amherst, Massachusetts, to a family well known for educational and political activity. Her father, an orthodox Calvinist, was a lawyer and treasurer of Amherst College, and also served in Congress. She was educated at Amherst Academy (1834-47) and Mount Holyoke Female Seminary (1847-48). Around 1850 Dickinson started to write poems, first in fairly conventional style, but after ten years of practice she began to give room for experiments. From c. 1858 she assembled many of her poems in packets of 'fascicles', which she bound herself with needle and thread.

After the Civil War Dickinson restricted her contacts outside Amherst to exchange of letters, dressed only in white and saw few of the visitors who came to meet her. In fact, most of her time she spent in her room. Although she lived a secluded life, her letters reveal knowledge of the writings of John Keats, John Ruskin, and Sir Thomas Browne. Dickinson's emotional life remains mysterious, despite much speculation about a possible disappointed love affair. Two candidates have been presented: Reverend Charles Wadsworth, with whom she corresponded, and Samuel Bowles, editor of the Springfield Republican, to whom she addressed many poems.

After Dickinson's death in 1886, her sister Lavinia brought out her poems. She co-edited three volumes from 1891 to 1896. Despite its editorial imperfections, the first volume became popular. In the early decades of the twentieth century, Martha Dickinson Bianchi, the poet's niece, transcribed and published more poems, and in 1945 Bolts Of Melody essentially completed the task of bringing Dickinson's poems to the public. The publication of Thomas H. Johnson's 1955 edition of Emily Dickinson's poems finally gave readers a complete and accurate text.

Dickinson's works have had considerable influence on modern poetry. Her frequent use of dashes, sporadic capitalization of nouns, off-rhymes, broken metre, unconventional metaphors have contributed her reputation as one of the most innovative poets of 19th-century American literature. Later feminist critics have challenged the popular conception of the poet as a reclusive, eccentric figure, and underlined her intellectual and artistic sophistication.

Artemisia

"Hope"

"HOPE" is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul，
And sings the tune without the words，
And never stops at all，

And sweetest in the gale is heard;
And sore must be the storm
That could abash the little bird
That kept so many warm.

I’ve heard it in the chillest land,
And on the strangest Sea;
Yet, never, in extremity,
It asked a crumb of Me.

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-6-17 22:49:07编辑过]

Artemisia

I’M Nobody! Who are you?

I’M Nobody! Who are you?
Are you--Nobody--too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Dont tell! they’d advertise--you know!
How dreary--to be--Somebody!
How public--like a Frog--
To tell your name--the livelong June--
To an admiring Bog!

Artemisia

I had no time to hate, because

I had no time to hate, because
The grave would hinder me,
And life was not so sample I
Could finish enmity.

Nor had I time to love, but since
Some industry must be,
The little toil of love, I thought,
Was large enough for me.

Artemisia

The Soul unto itself

The Soul unto itself
Is an imperial friend  –  
Or the most agonizing Spy  –  
An Enemy  –  could send  – 

Secure against its own  –  
No treason it can fear  –  
Itself  –  its Sovereign  –  of itself
The Soul should stand in Awe  –  

Artemisia

THE DIFFERENCE between despair 
And fear, is like the one 
Between the instant of a wreck, 
And when the wreck has been. 
  
The mind is smooth,—no motion—         
Contented as the eye 
Upon the forehead of a Bust, 
That knows it cannot see.

[此贴子已经被作者于2006-6-17 22:58:16编辑过]

Artemisia

I lost a World - the other day!

Has Anybody found?

You'll know it by the Row of Stars

Around its forehead bound.

 

A Rich man -- might not notice it --

Yet -- to my frugal Eye,

Of more Esteem than Ducats --

Oh find it -- Sir -- for me!

添香

[em10][em45][em45]

Artemisia

The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority—
Present no more—

Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—

I’ve known her—from an ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—